Phlow, A new app where visual stories are shared between people with the same passion.
Q1: Kindly share something about phlow and your vision behind this project?
– phlow is a new app where visual stories are shared among people with the same passions. In phlow, photography and journals are organized around themes, rather than profiles, so creatives find it easier for their work to be found, and readers can view what they’re truly interested in. Our vision is to cut through the irrelevant digital noise of today’s social media and to give relevance to great content, not people. Because we believe relevancy is so important in phlow, and the world is ready to let go of giving user data away for free, our team is in the process of creating a reward for community members who share the most relevant content on phlow. The majority of our advertising revenue will go back to the community this way.
Q2: Is phlow the same as the “Moments” feature of Twitter, or are there any similarities?
– It’s not the same… The Twitter Moments is basically a curated stream of the top tweets as chosen by Twitter. phlow has certain similarities in that the content is curated, but it is curated by the individual user. The technology also suggests content you might love based on your previous search trends. In this way it’s more like a stream of uninterrupted photos and stories of what you love. It’s a very personal experience.
Q3: What motivated you to start Phlow? Any interesting story to share?
– The vision for the project came from my own experience, and that of the founder, Alexander Szewald. I’ve been a photographer for ten years and I’ve always known that the quality of my photos were great, but I’m not a good networker, so my photos were unseen. This is the position of many creatives, they create amazing stories and photos but they don’t have anyone to share it with, because today’s social media gives power to great networkers, not great content. Alexander is also a photographer and he wanted to recreate the rich photo stories as found in the former LIFE magazine, to create a ‘show-book of the world’ as Henry Luce (the founder of LIFE) called it.
Q4: You were working as a developer, project manager and CTO so how did you decide to become a photographer?
– I’ve always been a very visual person. My parents always had cameras and in the 70s, when I was a child, they were taking a lot of photos. I love telling stories through images, it allows me to express the world as I see it through my lens. I’m not one of those people who picks one specific area and has nothing else in my life, I have a lot of interests and some of those interests are so important, I push them forward. So I kept going with the photography. I also love the idea of starting a business that gives something back which is why I started my photography business and why I also started phlow.
Q5: How do you keep a balance between your official and personal life? Working at phlow in the starting phase must be hectic. Share some insights about it.
– It’s extremely difficult! I have to thank my wife for reminding me to step back and look at what I’m doing from a distance. Too many times when starting a business we lose the bigger perspective – she has helped me to slow down and look at my life and my work in separate ways to ensure they go together well. One of the challenges is that because phlow is a distributed company, I work at home. Work and home life become too integrated – sometimes I have to change the scenery, to ensure I recognize my home as a home, not an office.
Q6: Describe a time when you realized you needed additional skills or knowledge to be successful. What was your approach to gaining these skills?
– There are things we can learn and there are things we can do, without being passionate about them. If I’m passionate about something, I will try and put my heart into it. I also like to work with people who are passionate about what they do. Whether it’s marketing, communications or technology – I surround myself with people who are excited by what they do for a living.
Q7: Could you maybe tell our audience where they can find you, and what to look forward to in the future?
– They can find us at app.phlow.com. When they visit, they can expect to see things they like and they are passionate about, without irrelevant noise and in the near future, they will be rewarded for it.
